Do exist an q2a function that it say me if a file or image exist? (Except the file_exists function of PHP)

Question

Hello to everyone, I'm going to share with you a scenario that I have, because maybe you can help me.

I'm building a code for to do something if it find an image and to do another thing if it not find it.

I'm using the rooturl parameter of the qa-theme class to get the relative path to my site, then I join it with the additional path where the image should be located.

After, I need to check if the image exists, but I'm using the file_exists function of PHP and it always retunrs false, maybe because it not recognize the relative path of the site.

Now, I think that I must to use an q2a function that it whether recognize the relative path and it return true when the image exists.

Thank you so much for your support!

Comments

Can you give an example of what you're passing to file_exists? Have you checked that you have the correct path?

---

The code is like this:

//The next line is to get the postid of the question
$postid_num = $most_sectionquery[1]['postid'];

//The next line is to complete the image's path           
$imgpath = $context->rooturl . 'images/' . $postid_num . '.jpg';
               
//This code is to set an image background for questions if the img file exist, else set a plain color background for questions
$imgexist = file_exists($imgpath);
if ($imgexist) {
    $context->output('
        <!-- Now, set the image path as source of the img element -->
        <div class="thumb"><img alt="img" src="' . $imgpath . '"></div>');
}
else {
    $context->output('
        <!-- In this case just apply the style to the question background  -->
        <div class="thumb"></div>');
}

Then the $imgexist variable always get false from file_exist function, then never do what I need to do in the code within if condition.

But when I use the next code it whether works and I don't see what is the difference...

<div class="thumb"><img alt="img" src="' . $context->rooturl . 'images/photo_name.jpg"></div>

The relative path is like this: "../qa-theme/advanced_theme_name/"

Answer 1

OK I see the problem - you are passing the "front end" path into file_exists. You should be passing a server path.

The front end path is what the browser sees and is relative to the domain. So "../qa-theme/etc" tells the browser to look for the URL "http://example.com/qa-theme/etc"

The server path is the full file system path on your server, for example "/var/www/yoursite/qa-theme/etc". You can get the server path to your theme directory using: __DIR__

For example: file_exists(__DIR__.'/images/'.$post_num.'.jpg');

Keep your $imgpath for using in the <img> tag.

Comments

Hello Scott, thank you for your fast and correct answer and I'm sorry for my late comment about it. This was the best answer to my issue and I want to thank you again because you help me a lot!